A little night musing
by JustTwisted
Summary: Post 'that old gang of mine' : Gunn has a sleepless night wondering about his place in the world, and looks at his friendship with Wes in a whole new way. Slashy tones.


Setting: early morning after the bar confrontation of 'That old Gang of mine@ season 3.Last Ep seen: Offspring

Pairing: Wes/Gunn (just go along with it….then start watching out for it EML

Disclaimer: "Angel" and its characters aren't mine. Cuz, y'know, if they were the blonde Cordy thing never would have happened. And there would have been a nice group slayage of Darla the minute she stepped foot back in town…Anyhoo.

Notes: First dabbling into W/G fic, and I realize this isn't my best work. Just a quick bit of angst. 

 Sighing the mixture of exhaustion and frustration that comes only to the insomniac of the early hours, I tug at the twisted sheets once more. Of course, I soon give up trying to untangle myself and simply fall back  onto the pillow, tossing the sheets aside in an effort to let some cool air reach my tired body. 

  The mind goes strange places in the darkness, this stillness.  Too early for the morning traffic, too late even for the sounds of the streets, there's only the stifling, too still air of my room, my breath filling it with tension. Somewhere in the strange detached logic of my thoughts, I figure that insomnia must be an improvement of the gut-wrenching guilt that comes in my nightmares, my memories of my sister. 

 Normally perhaps. But not tonight. No, no nightmares tonight. Tonight I can't mourn for her.

 Tonight I have no respect for myself. Nor really the guilt of my actions over the last 24 hours; more the pressing dread of the future, and living with my mistakes.

  It's funny, but even the confrontation at the bar seems like a lifetime away, rather than – I glance slowly at the lurid green glow of my alarm—wow, only six hours ago. 

As for my return to the crew, meeting Gio….that couldn't have been only yesterday.

    Now I'm lying here, and I don't think I've ever felt so…unwanted. In a day, I've set myself right back to the beginning again – when I was torn between the streets, and the Agency, when my friends were accusing me of not being there for them, but Angel was still tiptoeing around whether or not to put me on the payroll. 

  I thought I'd come so far. Those weeks without Angel, after he fired us - man, that was when I felt I belonged. I wasn't just tagging along to a prissy, invoicing, white detective agency, I **was** the agency – I was part of the **team.**. Me, Cordy and Wes, eating, drinking, researching, fighting, crying, laughing, hell -even singing- together. I belonged.

   And now…it's come to this. I'm back to just being an employee.  One who can't be trusted too much , because, hey, he's got loyalties elsewhere. Only, they, the crew, they got no respect for me  after tonight, after standing up for demons.. I'm nothing to **them** now.

This thought leads me into a few long moments of more self-pity. The mindless, thoughtless kind, you can just soak in y'know? Just lie there and soak it 'up. I, Charles Gunn, am **wallowing**.

  Charles….I don't hear my own name that often..  I guess I kinda refer to myself that way, y'know in my head. But I've never really encouraged it in other people. That's good. It's left me with a name that means something, it's intimate, it's precious, and not to be thrown around carelessly. Not many people have that.

   It takes me a little while longer to realise why my own name seems to be saying more to me, trying to remind me of something tonight. I realise that I've heard it used almost three times today.

 Gio called me Chuck. A trashy abbreviation he used cruelly, to just point out to me how much I'm **not** his friend, not any of their friends. I'm not one of the guys anymore. I can't be, not like that.

  Angel, he said my full name, "Charles", unemotionally, patronisingly, using it simply to show me how in control he is, and what a naïve, foolish little kid I am. I'm not denying there's not some truth in that. Still makes me hate him for it though. Still makes me feel awkward, targeted, like I was back in school, being reprimanded for giving the wrong answer to a very easy question.

   But these were later, later when the situation all got too confusing, when the eyes all started staring, searching, throwing accusations, asking questions I just didn't have an answer too. I'd heard that name earlier. Spoken softly, amicably, without any malice, or blame.

  Wesley.

   My head was already full of anxieties and regrets, after yet another nightmare. The call out to another attack on a demon wasn't helping matters. I remember a brief feeling of relief when I entered the demon's apartment, and saw that it was just Wes there, and not Angel.  Or maybe it was because it wasn't just Angel there. I guess things had been kind of edgy with him lately.

 Or maybe it wasn't anything to do with Angel's being there or not being there, maybe it was just…Wes. For some reason the sight of him, a glance my way as soft as his English accented voice, just makes the world a little clearer. Or something. 

 I frown a little in the darkness now.. Your mind really does do some weird things at this time of night. Starts you thinking things..well, unimportant things. Who cares about Wesley's accent for Christ's sake, after all that's happened tonight?It doesn't matter. Mentally moving on.

Yeah, cuz that's what happened soon after Wes and I'd talked for a bit.I just didn't want to know about this second attack right now, especially as it was raising up too many of the uncomfortable points Gio had mentioned about killing demons.

 I got irritated and asked why the hell we were so interested in it all. Wasn't as if this was a mission to defend the innocent or anything. No visions from the Powers. 

  And Wes had stared at me, with a look that in some ways mirrored that he later gave at the club I guess. A slight hint of something, a mixture of confusion and disappointment. But above all that, I think the guy was just concerned….

   _ "Charles, things aren't always so simple as - going out and slaying the big, bad ugly. There are in this world shades of gray..."___

_"Charles…"_ ….he had said my name.  Just naturally, casually, as he tried to help me understand a little of the hell we try to deal with everyday.  He had no idea how much his answer scared me, confused me, but under all that, I was, am, surprisingly grateful for the sentiment. I'd missed this- just me and Wes having a conversation about what we do, the whole  'fighting the good fight' gig. 

  We used to have conversations like that all the time, after we broke from Angel. Sometimes Cordy'd be there too, but a lot of the time  it'd be after she'd gone home, or was dealing with a client. Me and Wes would sit in the office,  a beer in hand, our feet up after a long day waiting for a client to call, or if we were lucky, actually having something to research or even fight. That's when it happened I think. That's when we went from co-workers, to friends. Hell, more than friends, we were..we had…we had a bond I guess.  I mean, Cordy, she's like a sister. I barely even know Fred now, and let's not even go there with Angel , not after all that was said at the bar tonight…

  No, Wes and I have…something else. I guess it's…no, **I know **it's the closest friendship I've ever had. Hell, it's the closest relationship I've **ever** had other than with my sister. 

 A sister who I let down…

No man, don't go there. Go back to what you were thinking. Wes. Yeah, that's an okay topic..

…funny, it's one I guess I've never really looked into before. I guess, well, yeah when I think about going into work it's kinda " I'm going over to see Wes and the others'. But that's just because he's the boss. 

  Yeah he's the boss, and I'm the employee again now. He made that clear tonight.When he warned me not to let this happen again.

  But  there was something else wasn't there? Something in the way he said it. It wasn't threatening, I noticed that straight off, and it meant a **lot** it really did. 

 I know now that there's one ability that comes with these empty, inhuman hours that is at once both a joy and a curse. It's the ability to remember the little details of your day, to pick up things that crawl up from your subconscious when you don't give it a chance to sort itself out through dreaming. Or something..

  _"I can't have any one member of the team compromising the safety of the group, no matter who it is"._

   No matter who it is? That didn't sit right. That wasn't a general warning to the troops, or a declaration of equal treatment or anything. He could never fire Cordy, and I don't think even Wes has the stones to actually **fire** Angel. Fred…she's like a little kid. Huh, I guess I'm the only dispensable one…

…no, no, I can't go back to that place of self-loathing. I'm on to something here.

_" No matter who it is"_. Could…I dunno, could there have been something there, an acknowledgement of that , well, different, friendship between us? I mean, I sensed he always felt the bond like me, it's just in the way we act together, the way we fall into sync, understand where each other is going.  

  But I didn't even really acknowledge that bond  till just now. 

I'm beginning to think Wes has though.  I think he was trying to show how hard it was for him to say all that, especially to **me**. Acknowledging that I'm different, that we've got something differ-

   Wait. Just wait. What am I talking about, what the **fuck** am I thinking here?! That me and Wes have some 'special kinda friendship', that makes him value me above the others? What the hell is that supposed to mean? We all care about each  other , Cordy, Fred, even Lorne, we're a team. Why do I think there should be something unique about the relationship me and Wes have? 

But I feel it. I really do. 

_"No matter who it is."_

And I think he does too.

The light hurts my eyes when I turn on the lamp, it's so glaringly bright. But it takes away the darkness, it sends all those muddled thoughts, and that one, very very strange one far from my mind. Grateful, I get out of bed, and go to make some very, very, early breakfast.

A voice in the back of my head tells me that it's not the nightmares of sleep I fear anymore. It's the waking thoughts that come in in their place. 

2BC…

_Ack! Okay I **really am **gonna continue with this in some way or another (even if its with a companion piece rather than a new chapter), and I have this whole plotline in my head,and I even have this really important scene all written out…my problem is writing the bits in between…and I kinda got distracted when I started directing my issues through Smallville Clexy slash…but I am gonna carry on. Soon. Give me a few days __J___

_  - JT, April 5th_


End file.
